Statement on Immigrant Parent-Child Separation

NEW YORK, June 4, 2018—As a women’s mission organization that has championed the needs of women, children and youth for nearly 150 years, United Methodist Women cannot be silent as already vulnerable children suffer the trauma of being torn from their mothers and fathers at our nation’s borders in a policy designed to deter and punish the “least among us.”

We are appalled by the disregard for the psychological, emotional and physical welfare of these children being exacted by the U.S. Justice Department. We are appalled that the welfare of children would be jettisoned to “punish” parents seeking asylum or fleeing untenable situations in their own countries.

Separating children from parents is not a new policy, which makes the decision to impose a “zero tolerance” approach that will result in increased numbers of child-parent separations even more horrendous. Experts know the traumatic impact on immigrant children of such separation because they have been observing and studying it for more than a decade. They know that children arriving on the border with their families seeking asylum already experience fear and lack basic provisions of food, shelter and protections. They know that tearing them from the one bit of security they still have—a caring parent—not only puts them at risk for physical assault but also makes them more susceptible to disease and irreparable mental stress.

We know the harm we are doing to children with this policy, which makes this deliberate separating of children from their parents for the intent of punishing the family particularly vile. This must stop now.